Older versions of wget didn't like wildcard certs (IIRC). I remember this being an issue around the time that github.com when https-only a few years ago. It's

Older versions of wget didn't like wildcard certs (IIRC). I remember this being an issue around the time that github.com when https-only a few years ago. It's possible that this is necessary here (on older versions of wget), or that using '--no-check-certificate' is a bit of a cargo-cultism by the author (who learned to use it, but doesn't know why and when usage makes sense).